Sunday, May 29, 2016

How inconvenient for George Osborne: yet more prominent economists debunking the austerity myth, arguing that the costs outweigh the benefits. Not only did Jonathan Ostry, Prakash Loungani and Davide Furceri of the IMF's research department conclude that such measures increase inequality, they also noted that this increase impacts negatively on growth - which is ironic, really, given that we're being repeatedly told that austerity will facilitate growth...

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has quite rightly called on Osborne to "listen to the experts" and bring a halt to the pursuit of austerity policies - but, given his resistance to such advice thus far, it seems unlikely that the chancellor will perform a sheepish U-turn any time soon.